


Shatter Me

by Aryagraceling



Series: Catharsis [20]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Iruka's a good bean, Kakashi's emotionally constipated, M/M, Mental Health Issues, breakdown - Freeform, it all works out in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 09:18:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17764067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aryagraceling/pseuds/Aryagraceling
Summary: Floodgates open and as Iruka quiets him, Kakashi clings. In this room, on this bed, the outside matters no longer. He knows he shouldn’t fall this quickly, shouldn’t give into temptation and let Iruka smooth over every edge with calloused hands and reassuring whispers. He knows. He knows but he can’t stop it now, can’t stop the shaking that threatens to consume him as he comes down from the high ofbeing.





	Shatter Me

**Author's Note:**

> [This](https://twitter.com/baiseandfly/status/1092056366556925953) picture _absolutely_ deserved a fic, so it got a fic. Also inspired by the Lindsey Stirling [song](https://youtu.be/49tpIMDy9BE) of the same name.

Hatake Kakashi has no heart left to give.

It’s shattered into pieces more times than anyone can ever hope to count, from the time he first killed a man to every second after. The shards cut at his insides, tearing through flesh and bone and sanity to drag him under a tide of blood that’s never ending. It slices his lungs and makes it impossible to breathe, to see, to  _ feel  _ anything other than the overwhelming numbness that comes when you’ve been in pain for far too long.

Umino Iruka has too much heart to give.

Kakashi knows this. He can feel it in the way the chunin looks at him over the mission desk and when they pass each other in Konoha’s streets. Kakashi wanders, and some days those piercing brown eyes are the only thing pinning him down. No one looks at him like Iruka does anymore because they  _ know.  _ Everyone knows what friend-killer Kakashi has done. It’s a dangerous game Iruka plays, attempting to get close.

He might cut himself on the edges.

Kakashi’s known as Konoha’s dominating force. He’ll take and take until there’s nothing left in someone’s body, until there’s only a limp wave and murmured ‘come back soon.’ Fucking someone else is easy. _Taking_ from others is easy, because there’s no hands reaching for his face to pull down the carefully attached mask he hides behind. There’s no hug and a kiss afterwards because he’s been alone for so long that a simple touch could unravel everything he’s worked so fucking hard to keep inside.

The Copy-Nin does not cry.

Iruka does. When Kakashi tells him not to touch him anymore, he goes home and sits at the table with his head in his hands. Kakashi’s giving mixed signals, ‘fuck me’ eyes paired with that lithe body towering menacingly over Iruka’s, staring down with the intensity of a goddamned hurricane. Iruka does not cry for himself, because he cries for Hatake Kakashi and the thought of what he could have been.

Kakashi hides all of that under cutting words and black fabric.

No one tells him ‘no,’ even when he wishes they would. He is thoughtful, generous, kind to the right person, and people take  _ advantage.  _ He’s not the only one in Konoha who takes and seeing Iruka’s face fall when he snapped at the bar--he just wanted to be left alone, have one minute of peace--makes him wish he wasn’t the only one looking out for his well-being. Iruka didn’t care to find out that Kakashi had killed seven people that morning, no.

Iruka couldn’t have known.

A few weeks later, Kakashi’s at the same bar. He’s staring down at the gloves on his hands and willfully ignores Iruka’s hello until Iruka pushes another full glass in front of him. Iruka smiles, and Kakashi’s eye widens.

Kakashi allows Iruka to touch him that night.

It’s nowhere close to the rough bite of Genma’s nails or the marks Anko’s teeth leave behind. It’s nowhere close to the fucking he does when everything’s falling around him and only the  _ smack  _ of his skin against someone else’s is what keeps him grounded. It’s not even anywhere near  _ fucking,  _ and Iruka barely allows Kakashi to reciprocate the touching. He tells Kakashi he’s wanted to do this for a long time, run his hands over Konoha’s famous body born of blood and steel. 

Iruka breaks when Kakashi leaves.

He’s heard the rumors, how Hatake Kakashi never allows anyone in and never allows anyone a glimpse of what he truly wants. The mask hides it all and when Kakashi’s eye closes in pleasure, there’s nothing but his shivering skin to tell Iruka what he  _ needs.  _

Kakashi’s a fucking puzzle, and Iruka vows to piece him together.

ANBU missions are the worst for Kakashi. The secrets, the lies, the blood on his hands that doesn’t wash away even after four hours in the shower--the water always runs cold after the first, but the freezing drops numb him--it shatters him again, pulverizing the shards into sand that grinds through his veins and deadens his limbs. There’s nothing to help, nothing to do except sit in the dark as the water runs over him.

Iruka won’t ever see him like this. 

Iruka sees the shaking hands and feels his racing heart but Iruka doesn’t see the shimmer of tears held inside reflecting off of Kakashi’s pieces. With the teacher’s quiet words and soft touches they get harder to hide, and Kakashi has to take a step back. He’s not ready.  _ Iruka’s  _ not ready to see what will happen when one word tugs on a heartstring and everything unravels because Kakashi will not shatter.

Kakashi will be utterly destroyed.

He doesn’t see Iruka for weeks. The mission comes first. The mission is important. The way his chakra and blades whirl through foreign shinobi is the only thing he should focus on because thinking of the way Iruka’s hair smells is  _ not  _ the mission. It’s not. It should never be and when Kakashi arrives back in Konoha, exhausted and yet again splintered, he doesn’t stop at Iruka’s before going home to curl in his bed alone.

Iruka’s  _ invasive. _

When he sees Kakashi in the street, he runs over with an orange in hand and offers to share it. Naruto’s with him, looking up with wide blue eyes that send Kakashi reeling. It’s too much. The village is too loud, the scents of the market are coming together to crush Kakashi under their weight and Iruka doesn’t make it any better, standing close enough to burn before Kakashi flickers home. 

Iruka doesn’t visit that night.

He gets ramen with Naruto and goes home to grade papers. The glass by his side is dried again and again and by the time he’s finished, he wants nothing more than to lay next to Kakashi and run his hands over the jonin’s scars. He won’t, though, because Kakashi barely acknowledged him before going away. Is that what they’ve become? Nothing more than two shinobi passing in the street who shared nothing more than a few occasional touch-starved moments?

They haven’t even fucked and Kakashi’s already getting rid of him. 

Kakashi spends the next week in silence. His missions take him out of the village for a day or two at a time but never long enough to forget the sadness in Iruka’s eyes when he looked at him in passing the next morning. The shower doesn’t help this time, and he stares out the window as the rain falls. Iruka’s probably out there with someone else now, giving them that same smile he used to give him.

Iruka’s window is open on Friday evening, and Kakashi crawls in like a spider.

The chunin jumps when he sees Kakashi settled on the couch. He doesn’t speak, simply pulls down two glasses from the cupboard and pours wine into them before asking Kakashi what he has to say for himself. It’s not much, but Kakashi apologizes with a quiet whisper and downcast eyes. He’s sorry for his pieces, the way they keep everyone away. He’s sorry for the way he is,  _ who  _ he is, and Iruka wordlessly offers a hand.

Kakashi’s sorry for everything.

The pieces don’t cut Iruka’s skin. He folds them in soft words and enough care to make sure Kakashi’s veins are never filled with shards again and for the first time Kakashi  _ gives _ , allows Iruka to reach in and hold his heart with trembling hands. The chunin takes that night, wine-sweet tongue calling Kakashi lover as he presses into him, and Kakashi sobs.

It’s the first time since he lost Minato.

Floodgates open and as Iruka quiets him, Kakashi clings. In this room, on this bed, the outside matters no longer. He knows he shouldn’t fall this quickly, shouldn’t give into temptation and let Iruka smooth over every edge with calloused hands and reassuring whispers. He knows. He knows but he can’t stop it now, can’t stop the shaking that threatens to consume him as he comes down from the high of  _ being.  _

Iruka’s the eye of the storm.

Kakashi becomes immersed in him, spins down to depths of emotion he thought he’d lost long ago each time Iruka sits him down and whispers three words in his ear. The black mask no longer hides a face lined with sorry--it hides quiet smiles and soft sighs whenever Iruka’s near enough to place a hand on him. 

The Hound mask hides the same sorrow it’s always hidden.

Iruka never knows when Kakashi’s on an ANBU mission. He knows when he’s  _ been,  _ because Iruka cleans the bloodied armor and picks up the pieces when Kakashi reverts back to sitting in the shower. He’s not Kakashi when he’s behind the white. He’s barely  _ human,  _ and Iruka hates who he becomes in the hours he spends waking from that trance. Kakashi never hits him, never hurts him, but Iruka can’t figure out how to fix it.

Those are the times Kakashi shatters all over again. 

He’s grown used to Iruka being able to mend him. The reassurance and adoration he’s learned to love turn to anxious frustration when he doesn’t say hello because under the weight of people’s souls, ‘hello’ is the last thing he wants to utter. Kakashi can’t be happy when happiness is nothing but a fleeting memory buried under years of conditioning himself to feel nothing,  _ be  _ nothing. It’s hidden behind the crushed mirrors that were supposed to reflect what good Iruka saw in him.

He’s gotten good at hiding in the two years they’ve been together. 

Iruka’s gotten good at figuring him out but it  _ hurts,  _ prying into the recesses of Kakashi’s mind to dredge up what he doesn’t want to admit. When Kakashi’s gone for nearly two months, Iruka can only wait and pray. There’s tears to fill the quiet and there’s the lingering scent of his partner on their pillows but most of all there’s  _ longing,  _ hurt nearly more than he can take each night he comes home to an empty bed yet again. 

Spring comes, and Kakashi still can’t go home.

He’s lost count of the lies he’s told on this mission. His head’s a jumbled mess he’s sure even Inoichi would have a hard time sorting through and he loathes it. Nothing’s real anymore, and was it ever? Day after day after day of hunting,  _ haunting,  _ and when he’s reached his objective, he begins to wander once again. It’s several days this time, not the few minutes he used to spend in Konoha chasing after Iruka’s ponytail. He’s stuck in an endless loop of horror and when he  _ finally  _ gathers his wits and starts toward home, he can barely manage to muster excitement at the thought of seeing Iruka.

His teacher is awake with his head buried in his hands when Kakashi arrives home.

His hands are knotted in his hair and he sniffs as he looks up, barely recognizing the apparition that slammed the front door. It can’t be real, because they’re all saying Kakashi must’ve passed. He never takes four months at a time. He never--

Looks at Iruka with the Sharingan.

Kakashi memorizes each breath out of those precious lungs, attention held by the way Iruka’s lips tremble on each inhale. He memorizes the way Iruka crumbles when Kakashi’s chakra entwines with his and then falls, knees hitting the wood as all strength flies out of him. The wrecked, gutteral noise Iruka makes will haunt him wherever he goes from here but wherever he goes, he’s certain of one thing.

Hound shatters as it’s thrown against the wall.

Iruka can barely hear the splintering noise. It’s drowned out by the sound of Kakashi’s racing heart under his ear and his own sobs reverberating through the apartment and Kakashi cries too, arms clenching around Iruka tight enough to bruise.  _ Done, done, done  _ their hearts beat in time, because Kakashi  _ is _ . He rejects the organization in favor of living a life he can be proud of and one he can share fully with the man he adores. 

They collapse together, because pieces no longer matter.

Kakashi’s broken and whole and healing all at once in Iruka’s arms as they lay on the floor.  _ Done, done,  _ their hearts continue to scream, and they don’t bother sweeping up the shards before crawling into each other and resting. Breaking the news can wait another day.  _ Everything  _ can wait for another day because what matters now is each other.

What matters is mending each other. 

What  _ matters... _ are their healing hearts. 

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think? Feedback is _always_ appreciated and encouraged, be it via kudos/comments/bookmarks or through any of my social media below.
> 
> * [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sparkswithyou)  
> * [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AryaGrace4)  
> * [Discord](https://discord.gg/ZkxAX9r) (or aryagraceling#4222 if you're not looking for another server)  
> * [AO3 Armada](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951), a facebook group for all creators and readers.


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